Nine become three, as the girls decide what to do with themselves after Kotori’s departure…

What They Say:
Otonokizaka High School is planning to close within three years. However, nine female students come together with one thing in mind – form a pop idol group to revive the school’s popularity and keep it from shutting down. ‘In order to protect our beloved school, there’s only one thing we can do…become pop stars!

The Review:
With Honoka having quit the group and fallen out with both Kotori and Umi, there’s a clear negative vibe around the girls and µ’s are on the verge of disbanding altogether. It’s not what they all want, but it’s hard to see how they could continue without some of their key members. But both Honoka and Kotori soon begin to have doubts that they’ve made the right decisions…

The thing about most of the girls in Love Live is that, even when they know they’ve made stupid decisions, they need their friends to tell them that before doing anything about it. The one exception is Nico – from the lone member of the Idol Appreciation club, she’s left being the one member of µ’s willing to put her foot down and say that this isn’t where it’s going to end, that the show must go on – even if she doesn’t manage to bring all the others with her in that desire.

Kotori and Honoka, of course, need a little bit more than that one impassioned plea to get them to face their hearts desires, and the bulk of the episode is spent showing them and Umi working through their thoughts, and the little things in their lives that almost act like glowing neon signs saying YOU’RE MEANT TO BE AN IDOL. Eventually that realisation finally begins to sink in, with Umi and (perhaps surprisingly) Eli being the ones who get the ball rolling again.

Okay, it’s predictable, especially when the episode’s musical cues telegraph all the drama out of the situation (hard to hold onto the idea that they’ll all crash and burn horribly when a cheery little number kicks in the background), but then that’s the way that Love Live! has been all along, and it’s been a large part of the joy of watching it: relentless positivity, and the knowledge that it’s all going to work out in the end.

In Summary:
Love Live! has been one of the hidden gems of the season – the idea on the surface has very little really going for it, but hidden under a promotional vehicle for an idol group has been a well-presented little story full of characters whose quirks and adventures have been simple fun to watch. Nothing to make you think too hard, but plenty that’ll make you smile.

Content Grade: B+

Streamed By: Crunchyroll

Review Equipment:
27” Apple iMac, 2.9GHz Core i5, 32GB RAM, Mac OS X 10.8.3